Military News

Monday, November 10, 2014

11/10/2014 - LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. -- In
an instant, he went from living his dream to being utterly destroyed on
a dusty road in Iraq. An improvised explosive device exploded about two
feet from his face, throwing him about 20 feet and leaving him
unrecognizable. As his arm dangled to his side, he stumbled up and
yelled for the medic. His teammates raced to begin the long battle to
save his life.

Retired Tech. Sgt. Matthew Slaydon, an explosive ordnance disposal
technician from the 56th Civil Engineer Squadron at Luke Air Force Base,
was critically injured Oct. 24, 2007, while serving to protect convoy
routes in Iraq. The explosion left him completely blind. His left eye
was gone. Doctors amputated his left arm above the elbow. He also
suffered a collapsed lung and numerous facial fractures and lacerations
in the attack.

His military career began in 1989 when he enlisted in the Air Force as
an A-10 Thunderbolt ll and F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft armament
systems technician. He was stationed at Nellis AFB, Nevada, Osan Air
Base, South Korea and Luke AFB. It was at Nellis that he first learned
about EOD.

"My supervisor at the time was a huge fan of EOD and it made me wonder
what those guys were about," Slaydon said. "I took a tour of the EOD
shop and thought to myself, how did I not know this existed?"

Unfortunately, no cross-training opportunities existed at that time.
After serving for nine years on the flightline, Slaydon took a
three-year break in service. He worked at Boeing and General Dynamics
but disliked the civilian life and couldn't shake the thought of being
an EOD technician.

"I despised being a civilian," Slaydon said. "So, I joined the Reserve and applied to the local EOD unit and got accepted."

In 2002, he joined the Air Force Reserve and began a year-and-a-half of
EOD training, graduating second in his class. Following training,
Slaydon was stationed with the 944th Civil Engineer Squadron EOD flight.

As an active reservist he completed two tours in Iraq.

"Before my second deployment, I decided I wanted to go back on active
duty,"Slaydon said. "I was home for a month from Iraq and still had to
go back through the military entrance processing station, but finally
got back to where I wanted to be."

About a year later, Slaydon deployed for the third time to Iraq.

He worked in Baghdad for about four months before going to Kirkuk for an additional assignment.

"About three weeks into my deployment, I was out disarming a roadside
bomb 20 miles outside of the city. While I was in the process of
isolating it, it blew up in my face," Slaydon said. "I was kneeling
right down on top of it with my hand over it. It blew my arm off and
crushed in my face."

Slaydon doesn't remember anything from the day that changed his life.

"I don't remember any of it," he said. "I lost the whole day. I vaguely
remember the night before and woke up a month and a half later in an
intensive care unit."

He suffered amputation of his left arm above the elbow. His left eye was
damaged beyond repair and was removed. His right eye was severely
damaged. He is now totally blind without light perception. Additionally,
Slaydon suffered multiple facial fractures, shattered orbits, fractured
sinuses, two jaw fractures, tooth loss and a collapsed lung.

A bomb blew Slaydon's body apart that day, but a lot of people helped keep his life together.

Four days after the attack, Slaydon's wife of more than eight years,
Annette, made the difficult flight to meet her badly injured and
unconscious husband at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. A
family liaison officer from Slaydon's EOD shop at Luke AFB, Staff Sgt.
Ryan Winger, accompanied her on the flight to see her husband for the
first time.

"It was an emotional roller coaster," Annette said. "I was really glad to have Ryan with me."

Overall, the 56th CES's command did everything they could to help the Slaydons.

"If you're going to take a page from someone's notebook, pay attention
to what my command did for me and my family," Slaydon said.

It's been a little more than seven years since the day Slaydon earned
his Purple Heart in Iraq. He's spent his days focusing on his recovery,
hanging out with his guide dog, Legend, and sharing his story to inspire
others.

"I didn't have any goals," Slaydon said. "I had this massive skillset
and no way to apply it. When the opportunity to do public speaking
showed up, I took it."

Slaydon has given more than 100 speeches in locations all over the world.

"I found that speaking and staying involved gave me an easier transition
back to civilian life," Slaydon said. "Being separated from the
military felt like another limb had been severed. Speaking gave my
sacrifice value."

Despite his injuries, he doesn't regret his time as an EOD technician.

"I regret nothing except getting blown up," Slaydon said. "Was it worth
it? Yes, absolutely. I never got so much satisfaction out of anything in
my life as disarming roadside bombs. Knowing that there are sons and
daughters at home with their families because I did my job is what
allows me to carry the weight."

During his three tours, Slaydon was credited with four enemy kills and
more than 200 combat missions. He disarmed more than 100 IEDs and
destroyed more than 150,000 pounds of captured enemy ordnance.

Slaydon was medically retired from the Air Force Aug. 27, 2009, as a technical sergeant.

11/7/2014 - COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Veterans
Day is an opportunity to honor those who have served. The stories of
those who have fought and sacrificed for our great nation are all around
us, but only if we listen.

Bradford Freeman, World War II veteran and original member of the
renowned "Band of Brothers," recently paid a visit to Columbus Air Force
Base. Freeman is one of the just 18 surviving members of Easy Company
of the United States Army's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st
Airborne Division.

The unit was made famous by the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers," based
on the New York Times bestselling book of the same name by historian
Stephen Ambrose. It chronicled the wartime experiences of Easy Company
as they fought through Europe. Freeman, a current resident of nearby
Caledonia, Mississippi, lived and fought through it all.

Born in Artesia, Mississippi, in 1925, it did not take Freeman long
before he realized he wanted to leave the farm for a life in the
military; one that involved a new type of warfare: the airborne
paratroopers.

"My brother and I had read about the German paratroopers in school. We
used to jump out of the eight-foot loft in the barn holding a cap over
our heads," Freeman recalled.

Before long, their confidence soared and Freeman and his brother hatched
a plan to borrow their mother's umbrella and attempt a two-man jump
from a more challenging obstacle.

"My brother said 'It looks like that thing might hold both of us if we
jump from the twelve-foot loft,'" Freeman said. "That umbrella turned
bottom side up on us."
Freeman's dream of being an airborne paratrooper came true following his
enlistment in the U.S. Army Dec. 12, 1942, and subsequent graduation
from jump training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina.

Not long after, Freeman found himself flying over enemy-controlled
France on June 6, 1944, better known as D-Day. He, along with the rest
of Easy Company and the 501st were about to jump behind enemy lines in
support of the largest amphibious assault in history.

Freeman recalled his aircraft taking heavy anti-aircraft fire.

"It was rattling those planes pretty good," he said. "The bullets were coming through the plane if they were low enough."

As he was readying for his first combat jump, Freeman said he may not
have known exactly what to expect, but he was sure he wanted out of that
flying bullet magnet.

"I was glad to get out. I thought every rivet was coming out of that
plane the way it was rattling, and then it just dropped," Freeman said.
"We knew we were in it then."

Once on the ground, it did not take Freeman long to realize he had badly
missed his landing zone. Bad weather had pushed the aircraft off target
and caused the members of the 501st to be scattered all over the French
countryside.

"I was way off in the pasture," Freeman said. "We found each other with
little clickers; you would click and respond to their click."

Easy Company eventually regrouped and began the slow inland push through
France, eventually crossing into Germany itself. Freeman fought in
every major conflict including Operation Market Garden, the Battle of
Bastone, and he played a key role in the cross-river rescue of 125
British paratroopers and five American pilots in Holland. Freeman's
commander recruited him for the special mission.

"I told him I couldn't swim," Freeman recalls saying to his commander,
to which his commander responded, "Freeman, there isn't a boy in
Mississippi that can't swim."
Despite his lack of swimming expertise, Freeman and the other men of
Easy Company liberated the stranded allied troops and returned them
safely to their units.

Freeman and the rest of the 501st fought their way through the war, all
the way to Hitler's mountain fortress known as the Eagle's Nest. Not
long after, victory in Europe was declared on May 8, 1945. With Nazi
Germany defeated, the U.S. military shifted its full attention to the
fight against the empire of Japan in Pacific.

"We were training to go to Japan and then the bomb fell on Japan and we didn't have to go," Freeman recalled.

The war was over for Freeman and he returned to Mississippi to start
life over again. Little did he know, more than 50 years later he would
be sitting in a theater, viewing the premiere of a TV miniseries about
Easy Company called "Band of Brothers."

"I was sitting in the theater with Bill Guarnere sitting on my left and
Babe Heffron on my right," Freeman said. "Then Tom Hanks came and sat
down next to me."

Freeman was a narrator for "Band of Brothers" and served as an advisor
for its production. What the movie became -- the scenes, characters and
dialogue -- closely resembled what Freeman lived through.

"What I was in, that's just the way it was," Freeman said. "It was just
business. That is what we were there for. They kept us busy over there."

Not all America veterans' stories are retold on the big screen, but that
does not make them less heroic or significant. All veterans have a
proud heritage to share, so this Veteran's Day make sure to take time to
listen.

11/10/2014 - WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. -- Admiral
Cecil D. Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, visited Whiteman
Air Force Base Oct. 30-31 to chair the Bomber Stakeholders Conference,
one of several stakeholders meetings held by the command this year.

These forums are designed to assess the health and direction of the
Nation's strategic forces, including bomber, intercontinental ballistic
missile and submarine forces, as well as the communication networks and
sensors that tie them all together. The meeting at Whiteman drew several
dozen senior leaders from across the Department of Defense to examine
the health and requirements of the strategic bomber fleet, which
includes the B-2 Spirit Bomber, based at Whiteman Air Force Base, and
the B-52 Stratofortress.

During his visit, Admiral Haney met with Airmen from the 509th and 131st
Bomb Wings. He also sat down with local reporters to discuss his
responsibilities as the USSTRATCOM commander, the role of strategic
deterrence in America's defense, and the importance of deterrence in a
world filled with increasingly unpredictable and evolving threats.

Bombers make up one-third of America's nuclear triad, with land-based
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and sea-based ballistic missile
submarines comprising the other two elements. Aging equipment and
constrained budgets present leadership challenges such as modernization,
procurement and sustainment, that are addressed during such forums, the
admiral said.

"The newest of the B-52s came off the assembly line in 1962. The B-2s
are 20, 21 years old," Haney said. "Quite frankly, we have to have a
replacement for [them] in order to carry out both strategic and
conventional missions."

The Air Force has started work on the next generation bomber, the Long
Range Strike Bomber, but it is not expected to be fielded for many years
to come.

Although the triad was developed in response to the Soviet Union during
the Cold War, it remains relevant and critical to our nation's defense,
Haney said.

"The strategic arsenal we have today is not about the Cold War," he
said. "We're not hanging on to Cold War apparatuses. This is about 21st
century deterrence."

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10, 2014 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff marked the start of Commitment to Service week -- a week of special
emphasis on community service -- with a visit to New York City's Harvest food
rescue organization Nov. 6.

Building on the NBA’s decade-old Hoops for Troops program,
Commitment to Service pairs basketball players and service members in community
service programs around the country.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said that the effort to give
back to local communities should go on year-round.

“This week the focus is on this because of Veterans Day, but
it can't be just about this week,” he said.

Military-NBA Partnership

“City Harvest ... is kind of the culmination of an idea that
the [NBA] commissioner, Adam Silver, and I had ... to find a way to link the
best athletes in the world with the best military in the world, and
collectively think about what we could do to give back to the communities that
embrace us so warmly,” Dempsey said.

“What we decided is, in addition to honoring the men and women
of our military, that it was critically important that people see hands-on
service -- together NBA [players] with members of the military -- so we could
set an example for everyone else and do good at the same time,” Silver said. “I
think it's been an incredible program.”

Participating in Community Service

At City Harvest, the chairman worked side-by-side with
Silver, service members from all five branches of the armed forces, players
from the Brooklyn Nets and other NBA employees as they bagged apples that would
be distributed throughout New York.

“We take food that would otherwise go to waste in one part
of the city and we deliver it to another part of the city, quite often on the
same day,” said Jilly Stephens, executive director of City Harvest. The
organization’s volunteers serve 1.4 million New Yorkers every year, she noted.

Service defines the military profession, Dempsey said.

“And it's not just about service when you're in combat ...
it's actually a mindset,” he added. “It's about living your life with a
servant's soul.”

Dempsey told the players and troops that he hopes they can
help pass on the desire to give back in communities around the country.

“I hope you feel this experience as much as just think about
it,” the chairman said. “If you feel the experience, it'll catch on. And then
... you guys have incredible [social media] networks, and if you can leverage
those networks to get this idea and let it go viral.”

“I hope this thing, literally, this has a potential to go
viral. ... Imagine if it did, if the idea of service went viral, what a
different country we'd live in,” Dempsey said.

11/10/2014 - JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- The
long wait for the families of Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller officially
ended November 8th, 2014, when the two men stepped off their plane onto
the tarmac at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., after being imprisoned
in North Korea.

James Clapper, U.S. Director of National Intelligence went to Pyongyang,
North Korea and secured the release of the two men after meeting with
North Korean officials. Together, Bae and Miller flew back to the United
States arriving at JBLM where they were received by their families.

After the plane touched down, Bae exited first and was met by his mother
who immediately embraced him. Then, other members of his family
welcomed him home with hugs, kisses and tears of joy. Col David
Kumashiro, 62nd Airlift Wing commander, escorted Bae and his family into
the McChord Field Passenger Terminal.

"It's been an amazing two years. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I lost a
lot of weight in a good way," Bae said with a smile. "But I am standing
strong because of you."

Bae is from Lynnwood, Wash., and had been running a tourism company in
China. As part of a tour in November of 2012, he led a group of tourists
into North Korea where he was arrested and accused of trying to
overthrow the government. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

After a short reunion, Bae and his family addressed the media expressing
their gratitude and relief that the ordeal had finally ended.

"We're finally here, my brother is home. All of our hopes and prayers
for this moment have finally come true. We are so thankful," said Terri
Chung, Bae's sister. "As we celebrate tonight, as we are together, we
know there are many people in North Korea locked up like Kenneth was,
and they remain apart from their families tonight. Please don't forget
them. We will not."

Bae was very gracious to all those who helped bring him home, including to North Korea.

"I'd like to thank the DPRK North Korean government [for] allowing me to come home and be united with our family," Bae said.

He then spoke of his appreciation to the American public.

"Thank you for all your support and prayers and your love," he said.

After Bae and his family were inside McChord Field's Passenger Terminal,
Miller's family members approached the aircraft to greet him as he
deplaned. Kumashiro welcomed Miller home and escorted him into the
terminal. Miller, a native from Bakersfield, Calif., and his family
chose not to address the media and quietly exited the base.

Miller served about seven months in a North Korean prison after being
sentenced to six years hard labor for espionage after allegedly ripping
up his passport and seeking asylum upon his entry into North Korea.

As soon as JBLM leaders discovered they would be hosting the arrival of
Bae and Miller, they quickly sprang into action alerting Airmen to
prepare for their return home. While the day was long for many of the
Airmen, most were happy to be part of such a momentous occasion.

"This is amazing," said Staff Sgt. Reuben McClendon, 62nd Airlift Wing protocol. "We're all a part of history."

Bae and Miller were the last two American's being held in North Korea.

DAHLGREN, Va. (NNS) -- The Royal Australian Navy's (RAN)
Director of General Maritime Development visited the Center for Surface Combat
Systems (CSCS) and AEGIS Training and Readiness Center (ATRC), co-located at
Naval Support Facility Dahlgren, Nov. 4.

The 2013 Australian Defence White Paper, released May 3 2013
by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Defence Minister Stephen
Smith, stressed the importance of RAN's future fleet capability and need for
upgraded technology to ensure the success of its navy in an age of advancing
technology.

The paper addressed in detail the implications of these
developments for Australia's national security and defense settings, outlined
Australia's strategy for maintaining a highly capable and credible navy, their
contribution to the region's long-term security, and how Australia will seize
opportunities and manage challenges in the current strategic environment.

Commodoere R.H. Elliott is responsible for developing and
gaining government approval for these future RAN capabilities and visited CSCS
and ATRC to discuss training and see firsthand how the U.S. Navy is training
the RAN Sailors manning the new Hobart class of air warfare destroyers (AWD).

"This visit was not only important to illustrate to
Commodore Elliott our training capabilities and processes, but to also
re-emphasize our partnership with RAN. Our relationship has produced a
resilient, global naval presence in support of the maritime strategy and will
continue to do so in the future," McKinley said.

"Commodore Elliott observed a blended learning solution
that includes standard classrooms, hands-on labs, simulations, as well as
computer-based and interactive courseware training," Galluch explained.
"Training commenced in January of this year and the last course will
conclude before the New Year. We are confident that these Sailors will apply
their knowledge and skills and help their Navy implement and execute
Aegis."

Elliott, who was appointed his current role in November
2011, said he appreciated his discussions with CSCS and ATRC and was impressed
with the quality of training he observed.

"I have been very impressed with what has been
discussed and shown to me today," he said. "The RAN's future upgrades
to the Hobart-Class DDG and its associated Combat System are in safe hands with
the impressive array of capabilities available at CSCS and ATRC."

CSCS' international training is coordinated through the
command's Security Assistance and International Programs directorate.

"The mission of CSCS International Programs is to
provide allied forces quality training to enable them to develop ready teams
capable of operations that maintain and expertly employ surface
combatants," said Dr. Darrell Tatro, director, CSCS International
Programs. "We partner with U.S. training, readiness, and policy
organizations, as well as other government agencies and industry to support
international missions. While the USN has more than 30 years of Aegis
experience to share with the RAN, we are gaining much through lessons learned
from this global partner as we progress with the Air Warfare Destroyer
program."

The ship's crew will conduct training afloat and ashore with
their Brunei Navy counterparts to enhance interoperability and build maritime
partnerships.

Rodney M. Davis has been on patrol in the 7th Fleet area of
responsibility since August in support of maritime security and stability in
the Indo-Asia Pacific region. The ship has conducted operations in the Western
Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and South China Sea.

Rodney M. Davis has worked with foreign partners throughout
the patrol. In August, the ship participated in a 50-ship parade of sail in
Sail Raja Ampat, Indonesia. More recently, the ship performed Visit, Board,
Search, and Seizure training with the Maldives National Defense Force and
maneuvering exercises with the Indonesian Navy.

During CARAT Brunei, sailors from Rodney M. Davis will
participate in training events afloat and ashore. In port Muara, the ship will
meet with sailors from RBN to conduct training in medical practices, aviation
maintenance, damage control techniques, and other areas. At sea, Rodney M.
Davis and the RBN will conduct flight operations, boardings, and live gunnery
exercises

"We joined ships from the Royal Brunei Navy during Rim
of the Pacific 2014, so we look forward to strengthening our partnership during
CARAT Brunei," said Cmdr. Todd Whalen, the commanding officer of Rodney M.
Davis.

CARAT is part of an annual bilateral exercise series with
the U.S. Navy and the armed forces of nine partner nations including
Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand, and Timor-Leste.